Australia’s Telstra Gets a Colorful Makeover

Next time you are in Australia and a multicolored truck rolls by, don’t worry. It’s probably just the phone company.

Telstra, the nation’s largest telco and provider of voice, mobile, video (pay TV) and broadband Internet services (via its BigPond ISP), is in the midst of a major branding initiative with a new tagline that announces “Welcome to Life in Full Colour” and an advertising push whose song includes the line, “Get out your rainbow colors.”

According to Telstra’s press release, the company is wrapping itself in six colors (orange, green, turquoise, blue, purple and magenta) to symbolize “the diversity” of its customers and services.[more]

Its distinctive ‘T” logo, meanwhile, maintains its recognizable shape while adopting the new range of colors in the brand refresh:

The visual and operational makeover is being positioned as “the biggest change to the Telstra brand since its transition from Telecom Australia in 1993.” The full changeover, “including uniforms, service vehicles, and customer communications,” will take about 18 months, Ad Newsnotes.

“The time is right for a new look and feel for Telstra,” stated Telstra chief executive David Thodey, adding:

“We’ve been busy changing behind the scenes to better connect with our customers, and our new brand identity reflects this fresh approach. Our changes are more than skin deep and come after the introduction of new customer-service initiatives such as 24-hour sales and support and on Twitter, weekend appointments with technicians, free calls to Telstra help lines and the launch of simple pricing summaries so customers have the key information they need in plain English. In addition, Telstra has introduced a customer service facility on Facebook, an online community called CrowdSupport and will roll out improvements to its billing.”

The new brand identity was developed by Interbrand, which owns Brandchannel.com, and will take about 18 months to be implemented. The shift to stronger customer service, sales, and marketing has been going on for the last two years, Bandt.com reports.

In tandem with the campaign, Telstra’s BigPond broadband service announced new pricing and packages. The telco is also awaiting approval on a deal with NBN (Australia’s National Broadband Network), the Sydney Morning Heraldnotes.

Mark McGrath, Telstra’s director of financial and professional services, commented on the campaign’s goals on his Twitter feed:

Telstra’s corporate Twitter feed, meanwhile, is advising customers to “stay tuned” for more as the campaign rolls out.

At top: 30-year Telstra veteran Brian Toland shows off the new fleet; below, the commercials announcing Telstra’s visual and customer service makeover: